Black Pudding (Pre-TK-verse)
by Soupy George
Summary: One of the many times Remus wondered if Sirius was as straight as he lead people to believe. The first in a one-shot prequel series to Teenage Kicks, told from Remus's PoV. A birthday fic for AdVENTitiious


_**Happy Birthday AdVENTitiious!** _

_It's probably terrible of me to give you an unbeta'd fic as a gift... I'm sure you're squirming at all my errors. But it's the thought that counts right? And I did bang this out in about four hours... since I only found out it was your birthday yesterday. But still.. I hope you enjoy it anyway. xx_

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"I fucking _told_ him!" Remus panted, as he skidded to a stop next to Sirius in the fourth floor corridor. He was unable to stop himself complaining even though he knew it wouldn't help. Remus threw a look back over his shoulder to see how close the pursuit was, and at the same time steadfastly ignored the way his heart thrummed in his chest, not from exhaustion, but instead exhilaration brought on by the thrill of the chase. Prefects shouldn't enjoy running from authority after all.

"Yeah but when has Prongs ever listened to anyone?" Sirius said, he was short of breath too, and his cheeks were pink from their sprint up through the castle. Sirius had no qualms letting his enjoyment of the situation show, his eyes sparkled and even though he was puffing the mischievous grin never left his lips. He hauled the gilt frame of a floor-to-ceiling mirror aside, then motioned for Remus to climb through into the revealed passage.

"I wish he would," Remus griped, once Sirius joined him in the cool dark space. He bent forward and braced his hands on his knees, making a valiant effort to recover his breath. It wasn't like he was unfit, but four flights of castle stairs and three long corridors in under two minutes had to be one of their quickest escapes ever.

"Shhh," Sirius hissed, his ear was pressed to back of the now closed mirror, and he flapped his hand in Remus's general direction to quell his complaining. Remus could only see his silhouette in the dark, there was a narrow strip of light from the corridor showing at the base of the mirror but that was the only illumination. Loud slapping foot falls reached their ears then, and they both froze as the sound of the caretaker's boots on the flagged stone floor drew nearer. As Filch passed their hiding place they could hear him muttering about chains and thumbscrews between furious wheezed breaths.

Sirius turned to Remus as the footsteps faded. "Thank fuck." he sighed, slumping against the wall next to him, "I only have two detention free nights a week at the moment, no room for more."

Remus chuckled, "Sometimes I think McGonagall should give you a reward for still managing to keep up with your course work and serve so many hours in detention, it's quite a feat."

Sirius elbowed him, "That sounds like a compliment."

"So?" Remus shrugged, he had a very long list of things he'd like to compliment Sirius on, unfortunately ' _You have a great arse'_ or _'You smell fucking gorgeous today'_ aren't things you can say to your straight best mate without getting punched in the face.

" _So?_ " Sirius echoed, turning too look at him properly, "You are always disapproving of my detention schedule, now you compliment me on managing it so well, it's weird."

"I disapprove of you getting _caught_ ," Remus clarified, "Because it normally means James or Wormy or I am too."

Sirius reached over and flicked at the shiny little red and gold P pinned to Remus's robes, the tinny noise reverberated off the cold stone walls, "Sorry Mr Prefect," Sirius said, with dubious remorse, "I'll try to break rules more efficiently in the future."

"See that you do." Remus replied seriously, batting Sirius's hand away from his badge, he tried to look stern as he realised he really was the world's worst prefect.

But Sirius just smirked at him. He was standing closer than he really needed to be, the hidden passage behind the mirror was pretty roomy as far as secret tunnels went. Perhaps Remus was just overly sensitive about Sirius's proximity, but he always seemed to be half a foot nearer than necessary these days. It made Remus want to grab him by his poorly tied tie, to either strangle him or drag him in for a kiss Remus was yet to decide. It really wasn't fair for him to be so tempting and yet unavailable, not to mention being about the worst person ever for Remus to fancy.

Remus could feel himself scowling, annoyed by his stupid crush. God he wished it would just bugger off. He felt confined in the dark, too close to Sirius, not able to leave in case Filch came back this way.

"You right Moony?" Sirius asked then, his voice was quieter than usual, he was looking at Remus in concern, all cheekiness gone, obviously having noticed the look of discontent on Remus's face despite the dark. He put his hand on Remus's upper arm, and his thumb stroked back and forward a few times. It made Remus feel pleasantly warm and completely ill at the same time.

Remus let himself enjoy the touch for a few seconds, briefly imaging a world where telling Sirius that he fancied him wouldn't result in Sirius going Padfoot and running for the hills. Then he reluctantly twitched his shoulder to get Sirius to remove his hand and forced a smile onto his face, "Yeah, I'm good, just wish Prongs would use his bloody head, that's all."

Sirius dropped his hand and Remus saw his fingers curl in tightly on themselves, as if they had misbehaved and were now being restrained – wishful thinking on his part no doubt. "He has no sense of self-preservation when it comes to Lily." Sirius said, grinning ruefully, "He won't quit til she agrees to a date."

"I know." Remus sighed, he really did admire James's perseverance, even if it disrupted their lives quite regularly, he'd been at it for nearly six years now. "It's just that I told him _so_ many times that setting a cloud of continually falling rose petals to follow her everywhere was a bad idea."

"It's kind of romantic though," Sirius said, "Very pretty… and it's not like he knew that they start to explode if you don't take the charm off after a few days."

"Didn't he?" Remus asked, doubtfully, "I'm not so sure about that… it was awfully convenient that he'd dumped all the old ones on the Slytherin table before dinner tonight."

Sirius sniggered, "He just said he was trying to cover up Snivellus's stench."

Remus lifted his eyebrow cynically, not doubting for a second that James wouldn't try to maim Snape, even if the injuries were only enchanted ones that vanished almost immediately. The power of the explosion was quite real though. It was this that made Remus add thoughtfully, "I suppose he couldn't have known they would blow up _after_ the food had appeared." He couldn't help but smile a little at the image of half the serving dishes from Slytherin blasting up into the air, "Filch is going to be scraping mashed potatoes of the ceiling for weeks."

Sirius laughed quietly again, clearly enjoying reliving the moment too, Snape stalking from the hall with gravy dribbling through his hair was definitely entertaining. "Come on, let's get going," Sirius said, after his minute of reminiscing, "We'll take a detour via the kitchens, Prongs will need éclairs to get over this latest fail on the Evans front."

"Good idea," Remus said, suddenly enthusiastic at the promise of dessert. "Sweets were always a good idea." he intoned happily.

Sirius smiled fondly at him and Remus squashed down the annoying little surge of hope that bubbled up every time he was treated to a full blast of Sirius Black charm like this one, "You and pudding Moony," Sirius said, teasingly, "you'll be announcing your engagement any day now."

Remus nodded, "Yup, a romance for the ages, me and pudding." He pushed the mirror open to check if the coast was clear, thinking as he did so that there was a terrible pun in this conversation somewhere about his love of Black Pudding. But he didn't think he could bear all the sausage-related innuendo that went with it, even if he could turn it into a joke.

Then Sirius laughed to himself, "If only we were that way inclined Moony," he said, and when Remus looked back at him, surprised that he'd even allude to "inclinations" Sirius went one better, and gestured to himself, "Black Pudding."

"Ha, yeah," Remus laughed, genuinely amused by their shared train of thought and Sirius's blatant corniness, despite the ache it caused in his chest, "Shame I like 'em sweet." he managed to say lightly.

"Shame indeed," Sirius agreed jauntily, before he darted out of their hiding place, calling back as he went, "Éclairs are in need of liberation Moony, let's get cracking."

The sound of his barking laugh eased Remus's discomfort and he followed Sirius's path down the corridor, shaking his head and knowing that he couldn't change the way he felt about his daft friend, no matter how hard he tried.

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 _ **A/N:** I'll happily take one-shot requests for this random prequel world... the theme being Remus's growing awareness of Sirius's poorly disguised feelings. So if you have any suggestions do let me me know. _

_Happy Reading xx_


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